Tuesday, September 16, 2008

September is always an incredible month in Seattle. This year is no exception. Solid sunshine every day for the past two weeks. Today is September 15th. Keri and Trey spent all afternoon in the backyard on the lake. The water trampoline was the center of their fun.

This is the first part in a series of blogs about our recent family trip to Costa Rica. We left home on August 2nd, 2008 for this land known as "Pura Vida". We would stay there for 11 fun-filled and inspiring days. The impetus of the trip was to retrieve our oldest son Bryant. We hadn't seen for him for two full years. He had been there serving as a missionary of Jesus Christ. We intentionally arrived a few days before we were to scheduled to reunite. The thought was to squeeze in some vacation time on a beautiful and secluded Central American beach. Once we were with Bryant we knew it would be a different kind of vacation. He would have us hurriedly traversing the country to visit people and places with no time to rest. We were absolutely right! Since we were visiting in the rainy season we headed up to the northern coast where it stays the driest. Our first destination was Sleepy Cove - a beach house perched high on the hillside overlooking the ocean. It was located in the small beach town of "Playa del Coco" also known as Coco Beach. It was without a doubt the perfect vacation destination!

The Welcome Sign to our Sleepy Cove rental

View from our room at Sleepy Cove

Kacie & Trey in the infinity pool!

Jamie & the boys take their turn

Stairs down to our bedrooms at Sleepy Cove

Trey loves to splash!

Entire family in the water

Dad and the Boys

Sisters trying to catch some rays

Kacie & the boys enjoying the water

Kacie hasn't moved all morning!

Trey kicking back

Jamie soaking it up

Kacie catches a sunset to remember

Keri & Trey feeding the local mapache

No doubt Warren enjoys Sleepy Cove!

Life gets more simple with Warren asleep

Trey on the rocks at Playa del Coco

Running the beach at Playa del Coco

Laying in the muddy beach water

Jamie at work in the sand

Who is that tiny man?

A note to BSO - Brent Sorensen

Trey and Dad enjoying some small waves

Trey tasted salt water more than once

Trey won't leave the beach!

Playa Hermosa - a neighboring beach

Raul and Lucia are the on site grounds keepers of Sleepy Cove. They are both from Nicaragua. They cross the border to earn better money. We became good friends with both of them and enjoyed some fine Nicaraguan cuisine. The family favorite was Nacatamales -- tamales Nicaraguan style. They are fantastic. That night Marcio, Daniella, and Ethan joined us for dinner as well. Marcio is the son of Luica and Raul. He married Daniella when she was 15. Trey's favorite was the Nica Tacos. Everyone loved the famous Arroz con Pollo as well.